Oh, what piping obsession/despair of isolation leads us to do
Ok, the closest pipers to me are around 6-9 hours of distance and usually they are so busy (or say they’re busy) that don’t have time to meet to play or teach. The offer may be considered OT, but it’s really because of my total first intention (not second ) of bringing some piper(s) to the region around here.
If you want to work in Japan for a change, I can find you a job as an English teacher. You don’t need experience, only any bachelor, the job is easy, the pay is good and lots of vacation. PM me for details. (I MEAN IT)
In turn, you should let me pester you occasionally and download your knowledge
P.S.: this offer may be extended to other non-pipers ITM players
I did a short tour of Japan playing uilleann pipes with a Celtic band a couple years ago.
We played in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Oita.
I loved every minute of it. I thought Japan was fantastic!
All of our audiences were 100% Japanese except for one guy in Hiroshima. He had been there 15 years teaching English. He had “gone native” to an extent, marrying a Japanese woman and speaking Japanese fluently (so it seemed to me).
I was in Japan for 2 1/2 years and think about going back at least once a day or so. I very well might once I finish my MA later this year…
I was in Mie Prefecture, about 1 1/2 hours from Nagoya and 2 hours from Osaka & Kyoto. Nice place to be and I knew there were folks playing ITM in the above cities, but I never managed to get to any sessions when I was there…
Fast-forward to a few months ago, and I’m playing at my local session here in Portland where I meet an American man and his Japanese wife who are over from Kyoto for a short visit. As it happens, the man runs an Irish pub in Kyoto, where there are apparently sessions five nights a week now.
When he finds out that I play pipes, he rolls his eyes and slaps his forehead:
“We used to fly pipers out from Ireland and the UK for gigs! You should’ve contacted us! You could have made so much money!”
Rest assured that if I go back, I won’t make the same mistake twice.
I keep thinking of the line from the movie “Mr. Baseball” where the gaijin are talking about living in Japan: "First you’ve got your gaijin strike zone: about the size of a Buick. But once you get used to chasing your dinner around the plate and sleeping in shoe boxes, it’s pretty much a nightmare … and I hope you didn’t bring your dick with you!
Just now I realized you are Channing Dodson! I took a look at your bio at uilleannobsession.com and was thinking about contacting you to check if you were still around
Don’t forget to give us a shout next time you come
No, I was surprised at what The Sporting Pitchfork wrote about this pub owner.
I’m not surprised at all there are places far from everything in Japan.
Anyway, though I’m in Nagoya, I don’t go often to Tokyo neither.
My wife used to teach English in Tokyo and wants to go back. So one of these days we’ll end up there for a year or two. Of course then I’ll have to find pipers with B sets.
That sounds so good! I planned, after my studies, I´d travel some parts of world, being in Japan for a year or two, most certainly. Sadly I have like 5 years more to study
How difficult is to get a job as english teacher, and how well/poorly it´s paid?
Thanks
It’s probably worth mentioning that Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, UK, Canada, South Korea, Denmark, France and a few other countries have reciprocal Working Holiday programmes. Basically, if you’re 30 or younger and are a citizen of one of these countries, you can get a visa and work permit valid upto 12 months in any of the other countries (details differ from country to country). That’s how so many Irish & English twenty-somethings manage to go work in Australia & NZ (vice versa).
Too bad I am such an old bugger. I studied Japanese (Nihongo) in college (back in 1980).
Could I send my wife? She is not a piper and she is in here 40’s too, but is there a chance? Just kidding.
I actually did think about doing something like this in my college days. I have friends and a grandfather in Japan. It just took me so long to get my Geology degree.
Yeah, I realize there are a handful of uilleann pipers in the Kansai area, though I’m not sure how aware of that the pub owner was. Certainly there are some native Japanese flute & fiddle players in the area that play at an incredibly high standard and don’t seem to have any trouble finding gigs.
Another factor could simply have been that the owner wanted to bring in some foreigners for the exoticness/(faux-) authenticity factor. Not PC, but the sight of foreigners playing foreign music might be thought to be more effective at bringing in punters.
There are certainly a lot of Irish musicians from North America, Ireland and the UK that wind up doing quick tours of Japan every year, sometimes at the invitiation of Irish-themed pubs, or folk festival-type events (or some combination of the two). My friend, guitarist/singer Nancy Conescu, usually goes over once a year for a couple of weeks, as does flute player Hanz Araki (whose father, as you might guess from his name, is Japanese). I think Tom Creegan’s old outfit The Suffering Gaels used to tour over there on a regular basis as well.
I did hear when I was over there that there were several Irish musicians, including an uilleann piper, that were hired to play daily at Universal Studios Osaka…Not sure anything like that is still going on…Wasn’t Joey Abarta playing pipes out at Tokyo Disneyland for a while or something?
Romulo, if I do ever wind up going back to Japan (I give it a 50/50 chance at this point), I’d be happy to swing by…Maybe I could teach you some tunes in exchange for Portuguese lessons?
) of bringing some piper(s) to the region around here.
I took a look at your bio at 
